Workers of the World Unite!

Vol. 7, No. 1 w FALL 2009 wLABOR DONATEDw $2 ($3 SOLIDARITY)

TheThe EighteenthEighteenth BrumaireBrumaire ofof JoeJoe thethe PlumberPlumber 1 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST contents

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Joe the Plumber: U.S. Editor: Nicol Partida Financial Meltdown Conjures Resurgent Specters of Political Farce...... p. 3 Editorial Collective: Matt Erard Matt Erard Skipper Hammond Sara McClean Mike Treacy A Case Study of Power and Media: The Washington Post...... p. 5 SPMI member Adam Adrianson also greatly contributed to producing the lay-out for this issue. Max Kantar

The Michigan Socialist (TMS) is the magazine of the Socialist Party of Michigan (SPMI), affiliate of the Socialist Party USA. P.O. Box 844, Marquette MI Barnes and Noble Sucks...... p. 6 49855; email: [email protected]; WWW: Richard Monroe http://www.spmichigan.org All submissions to the Michigan Socialist can be sent by email or snail mail. Submissions sent by email should be sent to: [email protected]. Hardcopy Socialist Party of Michigan Statement: U.S. Financial submissions should be sent to: SPMI P.O. Box 844, Meltdown Spotlights Profit System’s Failure and the Marquette, MI 49855. Need for Economic Democracy...... p. 7 Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Socialist Party of Michigan, which are expressed in editorial statements, or of the Socialist Party USA. The Editorial Collective of the Michigan Socialist Party of Michigan 2008 Election Socialist reserves the right to edit all articles for typography, spelling, and grammar without Results...... p. 8 consultation. On all author matters of editing, the Editorial Collective with attempt to collaborate with authors as much as possible. No Car Czar’s, No Capitalists, No Bailouts, No Bosses! Socialist Party USA - Outline of Principles: THE SOCIALIST PARTY strives to establish a radical Socialist Party of Michigan Statement on the U.S. democracy that places peoples’ lives under their own Automotive Industry Bailout...... p. 10 control; a non-racist, classless, feminist, non- heterosexist socialist society...where working people own and control the means of production and distribution, through democratically-controlled Remember Stonewall? Do we even know what Stonewall committees and assemblies; where full employment is meant? Socialist Party Statement on the 40th Anniversary realized for everyone who wants to work; where workers have the right to form unions freely, and to of the Stonewall Rebellion...... p. 11 strike and engage in other forms of job actions; and Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. We believe socialism and democracy are one and Arts Review : Sex Pistols Rockumentary The Filth and indivisible. The working class is in a key and central the Fury and Detroit Hip-Hop Artist 'Invincible'...... p. 12 position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class Sayan Bhattacharyya and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future – Socialist Party of Michigan Condemns Corporate Parties' to a real radical democracy from below. The Socialist Party fights for progressive changes Stratified Assault on State Budget...... p. 16 compatible with a socialist future. We support militant working class struggles and electoral action, Socialist Party Condemns Post-Election Racist independent of the capitalist-controlled two-party system, to present socialist alternatives. We strive for Attacks...... p. 23 democratic social revolutions — radical and fundamental changes in the structure and nature of Proletarian Poetry...... p. 24 economic, political and social relations — to abolish the power now exercised by the few who control the Nicol Partida economy and the government. The Socialist Party is a democratic, multi-tendency organization, with structure and practices visible and accessible to all members. 2 The The MICHIGAN MICHIGAN SOCIALIST SOCIALIST cover article The Eighteenth Brumaire of Joe the Plumber U.S. Financial Meltdown Conjures Resurgent Specters of Political Farce

second time as farce." Marx wrote unprecedented assaults on U.S. By MATT ERARD this, still often quoted, but seldom citizens’ most fundamental The Michigan Socialist contextually attributed line in his Constitutional protections by both Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis corporate parties, the U.S. military hen the leading Bonaparte; an essay principally establishment has now embarked upon commentators of the U.S. focused upon the French state’s increasingly vigilant preparations to Wcapitalist establishment superficial orientation to the middle counter the rising threat of began their exclamations of victory class, as an essential means to quell revolutionary upsurge against the following the Soviet Union’s 1991 the threat of volatile class present social order’s now universally dissolution, few would have antagonisms. conspicuous decline. Having already entertained the possibility that the Within 'The Eighteenth successfully established term "socialism" might re-emerge at Brumaire,' Marx directly goes on to unprecedented curtailments of the the center of American political observe that, rights of personal privacy, association, discourse less than two decades later. "The tradition of all dead and habeas corpus, the recent wave of But following Merriam-Webster’s generations weighs like a nightmare economic crisis, now enshrouding the announcement of its "words of the on the brains of the living. And just as global capitalist order, has led the year" at the very close of 2008, the they seem to be occupied with 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, restricting unanticipated return of the word revolutionizing themselves and things, the military from domestic law "socialism" to everyday household creating something that did not exist enforcement, to become the most usage could hardly have been more before, precisely in such epochs of recent of such targets. officially pronounced. Socialism had revolutionary crisis they anxiously As of last October, the not just appeared on the list Merriam- conjure up the spirits of the past to Pentagon has established the first ever Webster’s list of words of the year, it their service, borrowing from them permanent deployment of an active- had taken the place of number three! names, battle slogans, and costumes duty military brigade within the Now looking back to the in order to present this new scene in borders of the United States. As preceding decade, when American world history in time-honored reported by Army Times, the first unit capitalism’s ideological engineers disguise and borrowed language." to be deployed is the 3rd Infantry proclaimed "the end of history," from Division’s 1st Brigade Combat team, the apparent failure of the ‘workers of Although the present economic composed of approximately 4,700 crisis has yet to confront the world’s troops who have spent 35 of the the world to unite’ by the 20th ruling classes with a period of preceding 60 months patrolling in Century’s close, one is pressed in "revolutionary crisis," at no point "full battle rattle" in Iraq. Under hindsight to question what since the post-War "Red Scare," have presently established plans, the consideration they may have given to conditions led them to so "anxiously permanent domestic deployment is set another one of Marx’s most well conjure up the spirits of the past to to include over 20,000 troops by 2011. known aphorisms; regarding the same their service." Throughout the rein of Among the functions listed in its human political history they claimed the Bush regime, the U.S. government officially assigned mission are, then to have just concluded. began to undertake exceedingly "surveillance activities," and Only four years after the drastic measures to expand the providing "support for civilian law- publication of the 'Communist suppressive capabilities of the enforcement branches like local police Manifesto,' Marx observed that, "all executive branch toward prospective and rescue personnel, and situations great world-historic facts and future threats of political upheaval. involving civil unrest, crowd control, personages appear, so to speak, Following the past near-decade of or catastrophes." twice… the first time as tragedy, the

3 The The MICHIGAN MICHIGAN SOCIALIST SOCIALIST The American Civil Liberties address rapidly expanding human came from the architect of the recent Union notes that, "The deployment of insecurity at home...Under the most bailout of the U.S. financial sector an active unit within the United States extreme circumstances, this might himself – then U.S. Treasury is also troubling given recent include use of military force against Secretary, and former Goldman-Sachs evidence of the Defense Department’s hostile groups inside the United CEO, Henry Paulson. According to involvement in warrantless States. Further, DoD would be, by both U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R- surveillance." Such evidence stems necessity, an essential hub for the OK) and U.S. Congressman Brad from the Pentagon Threat and Local continuity of political authority in a Sherman (D-CA), Paulson asserted to Observation Notices obtained by multi-state or nationwide civil members of Congress that its failure ACLU Freedom of Information Act conflict or disturbance" (i.e. the to authorize the financial sector’s requests, which have named such outbreak of social revolution across $700 billion+ looting of the U.S. political organizations as the Catholic the United States). treasury may lead to conditions Worker, United for Peace and Justice, Among the circumstances, requiring for the imposition of Americans Friends Service speculated in the report, that may "martial law." Committee, Iraq Veterans Against the necessitate such a reorientation of Taken together, such measures War, Veterans for Peace, and the military priorities to the homeland and pronouncements by the U.S. Socialist Party USA. are, "unforeseen economic collapse, ruling establishment demonstrate a In concurrence with this loss of functioning political and legal starkly rising concern over its unprecedented permanent deployment order, [and] purposeful domestic capacity to re-impose the tragic fate of an active-duty brigade on U.S. soil, resistance or insurgency" [emphasis of the past century’s many crushed a new report released through the added]. The report later goes on to and thwarted revolutions, should the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic quote an earlier 2008 report from the presently deepening economic crisis Studies Institute explicitly War College’s Strategic Studies lead to similar stage of the class recommends an evaluation of the Institute, asserting that, "In a sense, struggle. To no greater an extent than Pentagon’s capabilities to reorient the states are being overwhelmed by any national ruling class of the past focus of its engagements from complexity, fragmentation, and century, however, does the U.S. imperialist occupation abroad to demands they simply are unable to ruling class optimally seek to further domestic counterinsurgency. meet. They are experiencing offset its own positional stability or As asserted within the report, unsettling diminution in their capacity diminish its directly instrumental "Widespread civil violence inside the to manage political, social, and political control by relinquishing the United States would force the defense economic problems that are pretenses of democratic governance establishment to reorient priorities in increasingly interconnected, to fascistic or military command. extremis to defend basic domestic intractable, and volatile." To an extent that remains order and human security...An The most ominous of unparalleled within any other American government and defense speculations from within the U.S. capitalist republic, such instrumental establishment lulled into policy establishment, on the need for political control by the U.S. ruling complacency by a long-secure domestic military suppression in class is by no means limited to the domestic order would be forced to response to the economic crisis, state itself. As linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky has observed, "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly Socialist Party of Michigan limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate 2009 State Convention within that spectrum - even 10am-6pm, Saturday, November 7th, 2009 encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the The Leland Hotel - Main Lobby w sense that there's free thinking going 400 Bagley St. Detroit, MI 48226. on, while all the time the The public is invited to attend. For more information, presuppositions of the system are call (906) 362-6342 or email [email protected] being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

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4rapidly divest some or most external however, came not from within the The The MICHIGAN MICHIGAN SOCIALIST SOCIALIST 4security commitments in order to Defense Department, but directly AMedia: Case TheStudy Washington of Power Postand the Media: The Washington Post

attack are as follows: reasonable, within their rights, and 1) The attack was orchestrated and unchallenged in their assertions and By MAX KANTAR intended to "send a warning to the cause. The Michigan Socialist Syrian government." If the Washington Post had 2) The attack was intended to kill an any commitment to serious he United States’ recent "insurgent" who is allegedly journalism, the justifications given by unilateral attack on Syria, and responsible for the presence of the US State department spokesmen the subsequent coverage of the "hundreds of foreign fighters" for the attack on Syria would have T stationed in Iraq, who have killed been treated with ridicule, assuming events by the mainstream US media, present an impeccable illustration of "thousands of Iraqis." that readers have a basic respect for the prevailing ideologies that dictate 3) The attack was intended to pressure human rights and international law. how news is received, composed, and Syrian officials to "clean up the global To apply the respective justifications understood by "respectable" threat in [their] backyard," and if they for the attack within a universal journalists and reporters. do not "clean up" their "backyard" to context; we should judge the situation Considering the variables the satisfaction of the US, then the US using official US laws and standards surrounding the US attack, this will "be left with no choice but to take of conduct. According to Section instance could not be a more perfect these matters into [its] own hands." 2331 under Title 18 of the US Code, example to gain a clear understanding 4) The attack, according to US "Violent acts or acts dangerous to of the rationale behind US foreign officials, has the advantage and human life that…appear to be policy and the ideological constraints purpose of "goading such countries intended…to influence the policy of a that shackle our "free" press. into action." US military analyst, government by intimidation or As most of the mainstream Anthony Cordesman, added that such coercion, or by [using force] or and establishment newspapers follow strikes and "operations" like the US violence to intimidate or coerce a a reasonably similar framework of killings in Syria are "the only way civilian population" constitute news reporting, there is no need to use you can deal with" countries like "international terrorism."[iv] excessive space critiquing all of them. Syria. Because the US military In this brief examination, I will use 5) The attack was also hinted at strike, as proclaimed by its the report and coverage put forth by potentially falling under the recent US orchestrators, was explicitly intended the Washington Post on Tuesday, claims of "self-defense" in its to "goad" or "coerce" Syria's October 28, 2008 entitled, "U.S. Calls unprovoked military strikes in government into "action," and serve Raid a Warning to Syria."[i] Pakistan which have killed many as a "warning" to "intimidate" the On October 26th, four US children and other civilians.[ii] government and population, the US helicopters flew from US-occupied All of these justifications assault was a textbook case of Iraq into Syria. Upon landing, US were given to Washington Post "international terrorism" by its own ground troops attacked a civilian journalists and were simply restated standards. The violent US action, center, which was under construction, for the readership without a hint of clearly not only "dangerous to human killing at least seven civilians and criticism. The report in the life," but indeed, intended to destroy wounding several more. According to Washington Post for all intents and human life, was by definition a multiple sources, such as Syrian purposes served most literally as a terrorist attack. Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moualem, government statement issued by the We might pause to ask: Had the all those killed were civilians, "Ministry of Truth."[iii] If the reasons attackers been an part of an occupying including "a father, his three children, for the attack, as noted above, truly army in Mexico, and the target had and wife." deserved any further investigation, been a civilian center in California, The reasons provided for the commentary, or thought, the whether the Washington Post and its US military strike in Syria were very Washington Post report presumably friends in the State Department would explicit. As told to the Washington would have covered it. Therefore, the have then called it a "terrorist attack." Post by several official US military proper conclusion readers are sources, the justifications cited for the supposed to reach is that the talking Continued on Page 18 heads of the State department are 5 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST References to great movies aside, I By RICHARD MONROE really don't blame this one individual, The Michigan Socialist though I realize personality is at work in the overall capitalist dynamic. 'm laid off. I started a job at Barnes When I first went in to apply & Noble last fall. I worked an for work, I turned in an application, orientation, a training shift, and two unexpectedly got an interview, and I then, upon calling back to check on my more shifts, and that was it. It really is quite something to get used the idea of post-interview status, was told that I had done well and should call back working again, only to have the rug Barnes & Noble's surveillance pulled out from under your feet so later. I did call back and the next time cameras are only there to help ensure suddenly. I'm laid off but I'm was told (second-hand) that I could, yet your safety and privacy, of course. appreciative at the same time. again, call back later, or fill out another Rest assured, I'm not trying to application next month. Finally, a day just plain evil. In this world of market sugarcoat the everyday tragedies of the later on a Sunday afternoon, I was and commodities, bosses do tell others market. My supervisor told me that called and asked if I was still interested bosses to let employees go and cut books weren’t selling and the store was and told that there would be an costs, no matter what the human cost, unable to cover the owners’ costs. So orientation in three weeks. I’m sure I because, to some extent, even the most he had to reduce hours, yet again. I was don't need to belabor how an employee paid off upper-management hack, or told the same thing the week before. could easily find him/herself frustrated wealthiest CEO, is a slave to the The result was that I had only one four with the bungling of a disorganized market. When profit alone dictates your and a half hour shift that week. This employer. However, I was sure that this business practices, individual afternoon, as I rolled off of my air job was the turn of my luck, and that, employees' needs and concerns are mattress, still more than a little leaden eventually, as Christmas approached, I made irrelevant, in spite of any personal with sleeping pills, I got a phone call would get more hours, save up some reservations or pangs of conscience a from this pleasant, impersonal master of money, have another job to put on my neurotic business executive may have. small talk at work, the human resume, and be in a slightly better I'm grateful that I'm not resources/scheduling supervisor. In the position to approach the next stage of ignorant enough to blame other wage- same chipper, insincere way he would my life. slaves, individual fat-cats, or even ask you if you wanted to purchase a I don't know exactly what went overpriced bookstore chains. Lastly, I'm Barnes & Noble membership for $25, wrong. It's very possible that I made grateful that I can take some comfort in he informed me, "We’re going to have myself a less profitable human reminding myself that I'm not socially to let you go." commodity. My final shift didn't see me useless just because I proved an If I would have called him out, looking quite as sharp as I had before, unmarketable commodity in this and his corporation, out on what I I'd forgotten a lot about working a cash instance. My education and my consider to be a poor business practice, register in the week I had off, and experiences aren't useless. I have faith I'm sure his response would've been waiting for my ride after the final shift, that a better, organized economy could something about being the messenger, perhaps a manager heard me talking to put me, as a working person, to use rather than the one making the decision, a friend on my cell-phone about the fulfilling the needs of a society, rather and "only doing his job." It's hard not to impersonal reference policy of Barnes than raising the profits of a few. I know make an allusion to the scene in the & Noble and how that might be an that in a better society, working cinematic classic Cool Hand Luke, advantage at my next job depending on wouldn't be a matter of figuring out where a guard, who knows he's carrying my overall success and hours worked. how to ingratiate one’s self to out an injustice by confining Luke into There’s no doubt individual behavior individuals who can hire or fire, or an inhumanely small confinement, tries has some role in how well a working conniving to somehow make it through to rationalize what he’s doing by telling person does in a competitive market. yet another week so as to secure another him something along the lines of, "Now I could be bitter, but I'm grateful. I'm vital paycheck. Instead, the focus would Luke, I'm sorry about this, but you got grateful that I have read and thought be on how I could best integrate my to understand, I'm only doing my job." enough to realize that, in one sense, own needs into a need-based economy, In one of the greatest lines of film there are no individual players in this in which the well being of workers is a dialogue ever, Luke replies, "Ah callin’ situation who are morally responsible or central concern, rather than an it your job don’t make it right, Boss." incidental one. ■ 6 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST U.S. Financial Meltdown Spotlights Profit System’s Failure and the Need for Economic Democracy "come together as Americans" and take ruling class Adopted by the State "collective responsibility" for their power, the Convention of the Socialist boundless greed and ultimate financial concretely Party of Michigan October 4, failure under the very standards they divided 2008 themselves imposed. mechanisms Congressional Democrats, through through which continuous pledges to reach a surplus value he collapse of the financial sector "bipartisan" solution to the financial was extracted shows the failure of the capitalist meltdown, have predictably fallen over in the past, economy. The inherent need of T themselves to reaffirm their reliable role have been capitalist firms to expand their market as one of the two great parties of capital. replaced with a shares and acquire new outlets for As Democratic House Speaker Nancy central vacuum. exploitation has reached a point at which Pelosi proclaimed on September 26th, Through such a capital concentration has created a "We will not leave until legislation is process of agglomeration, it has become roadblock to satisfying the system's own passed that will be signed by the largely indiscriminate to either the expansionary needs. In seeking to president. The markets need a message means or source, from which it is is prevent any reduction in their from us that we're acting." Barack accumulated, and heedless to extraordinary profit margins, the Obama, whose $25 million dollars in the consequences that its unmitigated capitalist firms have sought to drastically campaign contributions from the depletion presents to its own future increase their rate of exploitation of financial industry in this election has needs. labor, natural resources, and public Following this exposure of assets. They have come to rely on the The need of the largest capitalist decades of ruling class lies, workers sheer market manipulation of financial firms to wipe out competition has should reject the irrationality of the "free assets, which must ultimately rely on already led to a centralization of market" and turn to the rational investment in new sources of economic power, but in the form of alternative, economic democracy. The exploitation or public resource private ownership by an increasingly need of the largest capitalist firms to dispossession, in order to represent any reckless and completely wipe out competition has already led to a genuine value of their own. In the most unaccountable ruling class of centralization of economic power, but in recent development along this trajectory, professional speculators. Now that the form of private ownership by an the nation's top financial firms now seek they have failed, what earthly increasingly reckless and completely a return on their enormous campaign justification can be given for bailing them out and handing the economy unaccountable ruling class of contributions to federal politicians, back to them? professional speculators. Now that they through a taxpayer bailout of hundreds have failed, what earthly justification of billions of dollars. exceeded the amount received by John can be given for bailing them out and For thirty years the leading McCain, has likewise urged bipartisan handing the economy back to them? recipients of the proposed bailout have passage of the bailout package, "in the Ultimately, working people will have to attempted to justify their "Washington spirit of cooperation on behalf of the decide whether we wish to maintain the Consensus" on decimation of social American people." system of production and finance with safety nets, massive cuts to wages and The capitalists are trying to catastrophic consequences for ourselves benefits, and privatization of public accumulate greater portions of the tax and our families, or whether the time has services, in the name of mercilessly revenues paid by working people come for us to take over the economy strict adherence to the "tough love" and through bail-outs, corporate welfare, and democratically run it ourselves. "sacrifice" of the "free market." But now social-service cut-backs, privatization, During the recent housing boom, that their ruthless exploitation has and imperialist war. They are engaging speculators offered deceptively low reached an impasse, American workers in debt entrapment, predatory lending, interest rate loans on mortgages. As a are being called upon to forget the and loan-sharking impoverished nations. result, millions bought houses they could principles that they so callously imposed They are gouging profits at the point of not actually afford. Much of the funding since the Reagan/Thatcher era. These production through for these loans came from some of the same Wall Street powerbrokers who wage/benefit/pension cuts, attacks on largest and most powerful financial demanded the near complete de- unions, and race-to-the-bottom capital institutions in the United States , and the regulation of the financial sector under flight. As banking capital has developed world. For a brief moment, lending "free market" principles, are now calling from a mere medium between industrial institutions and banks made huge upon all tax-paying U.S. workers to capitalists, to the sovereign base of profits,but then, as usual, the bubble 7 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST burst, leaving the housing market, The federal government would also ethnically and across income levels. and, with it, the entire economy, in assume responsibility or forgiveness These housing units should be complete disarray. With many of the for defaulting mortgages while constructed by a unionized and largest banks and financial institutions imposing a universal five year ethnically and gender integrated on the brink of collapse, the proposed moratorium on all home foreclosures. workforce, designed to be energy gigantic bail-out could very well cost In the short-run, the costs of efficient, and located near mass taxpayers upwards of a half a trillion this debacle should be borne by those transit. These projects should be dollars. This staggering giveaway will who benefited from the scam, both owned by the government, but should bring higher taxes and further cuts in through a steeply graduated income be operated by resident councils with essential social services, no matter tax and an estate tax levied at a rate of the authority to set policy and to elect, which of the corporate candidates 90% for inheritances worth more than re-call, and supervise managers. becomes president. Once again, a million dollars. Such a tax structure, We need to advance from working people are being coerced into in conjunction with an immediate end capitalism to a socialist society, one in rescuing the wealthy few from the to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and which housing is provided to all as a disastrous consequences of their own a drastic cut in military spending, basic right, the financial sector and insatiable rapaciousness. would provide the funds to prevent a commanding heights of the economy The Socialist Party of financial collapse while also ensuring are made publicly accountable Michigan rejects the bail-out plan. the needed expansion of vital social through social ownership and worker Instead, we propose that the services. control of the economy, and government take over the financial Such a program to counter the production is oriented toward the sector, and then delegate the immediate crisis is not enough. needs of working people, rather than distribution of home loans to a Housing is too important to be left in maximizing the profits of a parasitic decentralized network of non-profit the hands of avaricious speculators ruling class of multi-millionaires and ______credit unions. These institutions are and developers. The federal billionaires. We, the majority who far less likely to push bogus loans government should begin building work for a living, must take control of than the financial institutions millions of units of low-density, high- our own destiny! ■ controlled by our corporate rulers. quality low-cost housing, integrated Socialist Party of Michigan 2008 Election

Results across all sections of the state's two election guides, and state government peninsulas. and non-profit voter information As in past elections, the SPMI candidate inks. Although the SPMI faced the task in 2008 of running was able to qualify the 2004 Socialist Socialist candidates while still being Party presidential ticket for the denied its own state ballot line due to Michigan ballot through the defunct Michigan's highly antidemocratic NLP ballot line, it was forced to settle ballot access laws. Despite this for official Michigan write-in status obstacle, however, the SPMI has run for the SP's presidential ticket in he final results of the Socialist Michigan candidates on the ballot in 2008... SPMI candidate Matt Erard Party of Michigan's each state election since 2002, ran for a second time in a row for Tparticipation in the 2008 through either independent qualifying State Representative in the 53rd elections demonstrated a considerable petitions or the ballot line of the District, which covers nearly all of step forward in its electoral outreach Green Party of Michigan, with which Ann Arbor. In addition to a relatively capability and a confluence of, still the SPMI maintains an amiable significant amount of press coverage, modest, but nonetheless record relationship. This year all three of Erard participated in a live, televised breaking gains on Election Day. the SPMI's nominated candidates two-candidate debate with his While running three candidates for qualified through the dual nomination incumbent Democratic opponent and state and federal office this year, in of the Green Party and therefore was also featured as a live in-studio addition to the Socialist Party's 2008 dually campaigned and identified as guest on Frank Beckm ann's WJR presidential campaign, the SPMI was Socialist Party/Green Party morning radio show. able to present and provide a Socialist candidates and were generally On Election Day, Erard received alternative to Michigan workers identified accordingly by the media, 8 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST of increased voter turn-out in the 2008 election. With only 1.26% more votes cast for the office in 2008 than when the prior record was set in 2004, such an increase can only reflect the outpouring of support Reynolds received for the Socialist public education platform he introduced to students and workers across the state. 2008 SPMI State Board of Education SPMI candidate Jean Treacy candidate Dwain Reynolds (left) and 2008 SPMI congressional brought a Socialist alternative directly candidate Jean Treacy (right) to northern Michigan's no less SPMI candidate Matt Erard struggling working class by running for qualify for official presidential write-in following his televised debate with U.S. Congress in the 1st district, which status in Michigan since the 2000 Democratic State Representative covers both the entirety of Michigan's Rebekah Warren. election. Upper Peninsula and the northernmost While the vast majority of counties of Michigan's Lower presidential write-in votes go illegally Peninsula. While more sparsely 2,200 votes; more than doubling his uncounted in most states, regardless of populated than most other districts, vote total from the prior election and a presidential candidate's state-certified Michigan's 1st Congressional district is receiving approximately five percent of write-in status, Michigan, this year, was the second largest district in land the total vote cast for Ann Arbor's State unfortunately no exception to that among any districts located east of the House seat. As a result, the sole tendency. The Michigan Department of Mississippi River, while containing Socialist State House candidate running State reported only 41 tallied write-in over 30 Michigan counties and in Michigan this year received the votes for SP presidential candidate approximately 44% of the state's land. highest vote total of any minor party Brian Moore statewide. Following the Despite the overwhelmingly candidate challenging the two corporate release of this tally, accounting for vast territory Jean faced in working to parties for a state legislative seat and fewer votes than even 2/3rds of the spread her campaign's message to the highest vote percentage of any SPMI's own number of dues-paying northern Michigan workers, she minor party candidate contesting the members in good standing at the time, succeeded in spreading it widely two corporate parties for any state level the SPMI subsequently received enough to win 2,669 votes; coming in office in Michigan. SPMI numerous complaints from both third place after her two corporate party candidate Dwain Reynolds ensured that members and non-members who could opponents and beating her other two every Michigan voter would have a clearly discern that their votes had not opponents of the Libertarian and U.S. Socialist alternative on their ballot by been counted because their counties Taxpayers' Parties. Like the other two running for the State Board of failed to tally or report even a single SPMI candidates this year, Jean also Education. Earlier in the campaign vote for the campaign. Among such broke a new record by exceeding the season, Reynolds spent nearly four counties reporting zero votes for the SP vote totals of the SPMI's last U.S. months touring across the state of presidential candidate was the county Congressional candidate in 2004 by Michigan with Grand Rapids-based of Marquette, where the SPMI's own nearly 500 votes. rock band La Dispute and opening each Marquette County local is centered! The SPMI successfully of their shows with campaign speeches Although numerous reports qualified the 2008 Socialist Party ticket to hundreds of young Michigan have been received of write-in votes of Brian Moore for President and working and student voters in each cast simply for "Brian Moore" that still Stewart Alexander for Vice President audience, and to roaring eruptions of went un-tallied, the Michigan for official Michigan write-in status by cheers each time he conveyed how Department of State Bureau of completing Socialists would address the state's Elections officials silently decided this the filing requirements by Michigan's failing educational system. year, in direct contradiction to their September 5th deadline. Among the Following the mass support own published filing instructions, that required documents filed was a slate of base Reynolds formed throughout the vice presidential candidates, whether Michigan presidential electors state from this exhaustive campaign certified or not, are irrelevant to composed of an SPMI member who tour, he received a record-breaking presidential write-in votes. registered to vote in each of Michigan's 94,663 votes; exceeding the past Consequently the MI BOE officials 15 Congressional districts, plus an highest vote total that any Socialist or didn't bother to include SP vice additional two state-at-large electors. Green candidate for the State Board of presidential candidate Stewart The Moore-Alexander ticket and Education had ever received by nearly Alexander on the list of qualified rightist presidential candidate Alan 10,000 votes. Such an immense Keyes were the only two campaigns to Continued on Page 16 increase was no mere spurious product 9 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST No Car Czar's, No Capitalists, No Bailouts, No Bosses! Socialist Party of Michigan Statement on the U.S. Automotive Industry Bailout

catalyst not only to the vast Senators were keenly aware of their financialization of advanced own states’ corporate linchpins’ capitalism, but also the increasing commonly held interest in detachment and predation of its vanquishing the model gains commanding speculators... automotive workers have collectively Such realities are no less achieved and sustained, and casting evident in the markedly divergent them into forgotten history. In the responses the owners of the U.S. objective of such Senators, a bailout automotive and banking industries of such an increasingly informidable Note: Since the passage of this received from U.S. federal manufacturing industry could only be statement, the Obama administration government to their requests for tolerated if accompanied by a replaced the appointment of a car bailouts of fourteen and seven- sweeping assault in the class struggle. czar with the appointment of a car hundred billion taxpayer dollars, Reflecting the consensus on fiefdom predominately composed of respectively. While ultimately the such a sentiment, among all interested Wall Street investment bankers and financial sector directly received parties, in so far as it pertains to equity traders. The extraordinary assault on the economic and virtually the whole looting it automotive workers alone, the Bush democratic rights of autoworkers demanded with approval from both regime, with full support from contained within the terms of the loan corporate parties in Congress, as well Obama, attached the auto bailout nevertheless remained the same. as massive added bonuses from the agreement to the appointment of a Fed, the comparative clout of the "Car Czar" whose function is to he tenuously averted collapse leading U.S. auto executives was dictatorially impose the forms of of the U.S. automotive sufficient for access to the federal "restructuring" necessary to ensure the Tindustry directly follows the purse only upon a protracted solvency of the industry in accordance arrant exposure of sheer parasitism allocation by the White House with the White House’s established and insolvency that now characterizes following the Senate’s purportedly "guidelines." In addition to massive the hegemonic financial sector of resistant deference. operations cuts, estimated to result in advanced capitalism. While No such political the rapidly forthcoming elimination of coinciding with news of Toyota’s 1.7 figures, however, were any more tens of thousands of more Michigan billion dollar financial setback and inclined to examine the automotive jobs, both inside and outside the first operating loss in seventy years, industry through class-neutral lenses. automotive industry, the guidelines the American automotive industry’s Instead, both opponents and reluctant established for the Car Czar’s looming threat of extinction is no supporters of the auto bailout in the implementation and enforcement mere consequence of the Senate, many of whom had been most include further drastic cuts to reverberating effects of the financial vehement about passing the preceding automotive workers’ wages and crisis, but every bit as much a financial bailout as a "clean bill" free supplemental unemployment benefits, contributing cause. of any executive pay caps, feigned the the ability of GM to pay half of its Despite compounding efforts most fervent of moral indignation already reduced "VEBA" health care in recent years, to uproot its organized against UAW workers’ audacity in obligations in company stock rather workforce’s most hard-won historic their decades of struggle to ultimately than currency, and the declaration that gains, today’s highly mechanized; retain just under 1/4th of the value UAW compensation arrangements overproductive, and globally that their labor alone contributes to must be made competitive with non- competitive automotive industry can automobile production revenues. union ‘transplants’ of Asian and no longer encapsulate the same labor Although, in contrast to the European auto manufactures value within each individual vehicle it financial sector, the political reach of operating in the United States. markets, as once was the case. Such the automotive industry is not far Moreover, the Car Czar has final say endemic losses in the real economy of enough to constitute a compelling on any renegotiated labor agreements, good and service production present a force in each such, disproportionately holds the power to nullify new and southern, Senator’s state, all such existing contracts by sentencing the 10 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST companies into bankruptcy, while the collectively bargain, or maintain the democratically determined macro- UAW, by the same threat under the benefits they had long before already economic planning, and workers self- agreement, is prohibited from going successfully achieved. management at the point of on strike! The Socialist Party of Michigan production. Such a socialization The provisions to the automotive calls upon all Big Three automotive process should not be limited to bailout and despotic powers granted to workers to militantly organize against automobiles themselves, but should be the wholly unaccountable "Car Czar" this agreement and to strike, occupy incorporated into a massive nationally are an unprecedented assault on the plants, and take whatever other action coordinated and community-based most fundamental labor protections may be necessary to resist any such transportation utilities program. Such and civil liberties of all workers in attack by corporate capitalists or the a program would maintain and re-hire every industry. Not even did the 1947 capitalist state on the most irrevocable the entirety of the existing and laid-off Taft Hartley Act present such a danger rights of every person who works for a automotive plant and engineering to the right of working people to living. We further call upon all workforce for ecologically attentive organize and struggle collectively at working people outside of the auto projects aimed at the development of the point of production as this industry to walk off the job at any electric and renewable-fueled ______agreement, to which the most point automotive workers at any of the automobiles, major improvements to numerous and affected grouping Big Three find the need to do the same the efficiency, range, and involved had no say in its ratification. in defiance of the same capitalist state sustainability of existing public While the former allows for the that asserts its rule over all of us – transportation systems, the widespread President to temporarily order striking officially throughout the U.S. and in development of foot and bicycle paths, workers back to work, this agreement practice throughout the planet. and the development of nationwide establishes an arrangement and future As with the entire financial high-speed railway systems ultimately precedent in which the U.S. President, sector, the Socialist Party of Michigan connecting all major cities throughout ______in collusion with union workers’ further calls for the immediate the United States. ■ corporate bosses, can indefinitely socialization of the automotive eliminate workers’ right to strike, industry under public ownership, Remember Stonewall? Do we even know what Stonewall meant? Socialist Party USA Statement on the 40th Anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion

fateful day, however, the Stonewall’s the rebellion By AMBER R. CLIFFORD- patrons had enough. Nobody knows that lasted NAPOLEONE who threw the first bottle that day. It five days in Chair, SPUSA Queer Commission may have been Sylvia Rivera, a New York transgendered activist and later a began to founding mother of political he Stonewall Inn, a gay and spread across lesbian neighborhood bar with movements on behalf of transgendered and transsexual the country. Ta large number of African Gay, lesbian, American and Latino patrons, was Americans. It may have been a still also well-known as a safe space for unidentified butch lesbian arrested in trans and those who did not conform to gender the bar. Over 2000 GLBTQ other queer norms: butch lesbians, effeminate gay Americans clashed with 400 police Americans men, and transsexual and officers on June 28. Arrests and took to the transgendered persons before the beatings were concentrated among streets to terms were in popular use. All of Stonewall’s African American, protest their continued oppression, these factors brought the police to Latino, butch and trans patrons. What objectification, and Stonewall in 1969 for the purpose of ensued was known in the New York criminalization. This singular press and among the police as the illegally raiding the bar, and arresting event, the Stonewall Rebellion, its occupants -- an action not Stonewall riots. For gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual marked the beginning of the unknown in New York in the 1960s. modern GLBTQ liberation In the early morning hours of June and queer Americans, and later the 28, 1969, the New York City police world, that fateful day marked the movement, and brought GLBTQ raided The Stonewall Inn. On that beginning of the Stonewall Rebellion. political and social struggles out of With shouts of "Gay Power," Continued on Page 15 11 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST Arts Review : Sex Pistols Rockumentary The Filth and the Fury and Detroit Hip-Hop Artist 'Invincible'

nationalism." bassist Sid Vicious, not on the basis of By SAYAN BHATTACHARYYA The critic their musical ability, but on the basis The Michigan Socialist Ken Tucker of whether they possessed a "punk of The New attitude" to a sufficient degree! In fact, it turns out that Sid Vicious never t turns out that I attended two York Times even learned to play bass properly, in music-related events last August, has remarked, spite of being the band's bassist, so both of which had to do with I "The stage that, at live performances, his bass musicians who purport to challenge performances was never mic’d. authority and see their music as the in The Filth What the band lacked in musical expression of anti-Establishment talent, however, they made up for in protest. The first of the two was the and the Fury attitude, which they possessed performance by the Detroit-based showcase one plentifully. What they also seemed to underground hip-hop emcee Ilana of the most possess in equal profusion was an Weaver (a.k.a. Invincible) and other charismatic appetite for self-destructive behavior, underground Detroit rappers at the figures in rock history. Mr. Lydon's especially in the case of Sid Vicious. Blind Pig in Ann Arbor. The second slicing vocals have the sharpness of a With an over-the-top style, and for the of these "protest music" events was buccaneer's sword, and he holds the most part a fast, jagged pace with a the screening of the 2000 film, The good deal of abrupt cutting, the film Filth and the Fury, about the British stage like a pop-music Captain Ahab." stylistically reflects quite well the punk rock group from the 70s, the Sex I did not know much about the giddy, outrageous and maniacal antics Pistols. Ever since attending these two Sex Pistols before seeing this film, of the band, which were widely events, I have been thinking about the and I went to see the film with the reported in the British tabloid press role of musical protest and resistance expectation that they might be as Esther Leslie and Ben Watson in the anti-capitalist movement. profound as other political punk- have remarked in their Militant The approach of the Sex rockers like the Clash and the Manic Esthetix article, 'Comic Marxism: Pistols is very different from that of Street Preachers. On the basis of this Punk Rock and the Bash Street Kids,' the underground hip-hop emcees. film, though, the Sex Pistols, with the "When, at the height of the punk While there undoubtedly exists a possible exception of their vocalist, furor, the manager of the Sex Pistols, genealogy that links punk rock to hip- Johnny Rotten, came across as a rather Malcolm McLaren was accused of hop via post-punk, the Sex Pistols, self-oriented band; more interested in striking a rebellious pose and sporting provoking violence and destruction at as depicted in this film at least, an attitude than about anything else. punk gigs, he replied 'you've got to be seemed to be more about nihilism and Their rebelliousness seemed to be able to destroy to create' ...The Sex chaos than offering a coherent social little deeper than, say, the thickness of Pistols deliberately produced music critique on a basis from which any a t-shirt. that was violent, nihilistic and meaningful program of social change Such a sartorial metaphor is politically unsafe... In 1977, the could be constructed. The Wikipedia actually rather apt in the case of a listener had either to refuse the music, article on the Sex Pistols states that band like the Sex Pistols, since it turns or become a punk in active opposition the "Sex Pistols emerged as a response out that the "concept" of the band had to humdrum existence. There was no to the increasingly safe and bloated been fashioned (pun unintended) in a possibility of using the music […] as progressive rock, disco and second-hand clothes store in Chelsea, an ornamental addition to a regular manufactured pop music of the mid- London, owned by one Malcolm life-style." 1970s. The band created controversies McLaren. (Below, for example, is a As the film depicts, the Sex which captivated Britain, but often shirt that McLaren handcrafted to Pistols did pay a price for their eclipsed their music. Their shows and celebrate the band's Anarchy in the attitude, as they were dropped by tours repeatedly faced difficulties with U.K album). several record companies in rapid organizers and authorities, and public McLaren even recruited succession. Yet, this seemed to not appearances often ended in mayhem. potential band members, including have translated into any financial Their 1977 single "God Save the Johnny Rotten (whose real name was hardship for them since, as the film Queen" was regarded as an attack on John Lydon) and, later, the band's gleefully highlights with a festoon the British monarchy and British 12 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST showing of British pounds, the ever- fellow underground Detroit hip-hop increasing sums of money successive musicians are articulating is both record companies paid to sign them, far more effective, and far more they seemed to have made quite a authentic, than the commodified killing by turning their scandalous protest purveyed by artists like the Sex reputation into a bankable and Pistols. Granted, the Sex Pistols may profitable brand. What was at work, have served a purpose by shocking in other words, was the well-known people out of their complacency and way in which protest itself tends to torpor; forcing their listeners out of the get packaged, commodified, and vapid easy-listening rut into which pop sold for consumption in a market music had fallen by the mid-seventies. society. Where the band really paid the Nevertheless, they seemed to have had price -- as the film depicts quite little to offer beyond a purely negative critique. They did not offer a positive, poignantly, even if matter-of-factly -- A mishmash of rebellious imagery: was in the personal lives of individual meaningful alternative, and this is why McClaren's handcrafted 'Anarchy in the their music ultimately pointed only to U.K.' shirt emblematizes anarchism, the void of pure anarchy, rather than Karl Marx, and "chaos," all combined. towards a coherent basis for the construction of a different kind of socialist vision – in this day and age, society. in today’s circumstances. Weaver was born in Israel and moved with her "God Save the Queen" was parents to Ann Arbor in 1988 as a regarded as an attack on the seven-year-old, and is a graduate of Ann Arbor’s Community High School. British monarchy and British For a while, Weaver lived in New nationalism." York City and worked with the all- woman hip-hop group, 'Anomolies', It is not that punk rock by itself has before moving back to Detroit in sold out. Dave Hamell, a 2002. band members and their associates, contemporary punk rock musician who A native speaker of Hebrew, she especially that of Sid Vicious, who played in Ann Arbor at the Ark some taught herself English as a child by after having become suspected of time ago, points the way, for instance, listening to hip-hop after moving to the stabbing to death his groupie-turned- to how punk rock can be a weapon for USA. She has been working as a hip- partner Nancy Spungen, died himself positive, even compassionate critique, hop musician since the age of fifteen, in circumstances that strongly and not just an instrument for wanton and also works as an "artist mentor" suggested suicide, while out on bail nihilism. for Michigan prisoners through the and awaiting his trial. It is to the work of Hamell and other meaningful punk and Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) Nevertheless, the film stands program. Tej Nagaraja, the music post-punk musicians, such as The testimony to the fact that, as the band’s critic for the Indypendent, a New Wikipedia article states, "While many Clash and the Manic Street York City alternative newspaper, of the Sex Pistols' outrages were Preachers, as well as to musicians wrote in his review of the album: plotted, the most famous were and bands like Rage against the "She's a visionary in the literal sense." evidently not." There indeed was a Machine, Patti Smith, and many of Weaver lists among her cultural core of genuine and passionate outrage Detroit's own native artists, that we and literary influences: Gil Scott at the hypocrisy of society and must turn for a satisfying Heron (of "The Revolution Will Not inequities of capitalism, animating this contribution made by the musical be Televised" fame), Nina Simone, band -- especially its most charismatic genre of punk towards creating the The Coup, James Baldwin, Audre member, Johnny Rotten,who much vision that another, better world is Lorde, Paulo Freire, Edward Said, later observed in 1999 that, "If we had possible. Suheir Hammad!, The Young Lords, an aim, it was to force our own, Twenty-seven year old Ilana and the long-time Detroit activists and working-class opinions into the Weaver (who works under the stage socialists Jimmy & Grace Lee Boggs. mainstream, which was unheard of in name of DJ Invincible), living and (The latter had been, along with the pop music at the time.” working in Detroit, exemplifies how great Trinidadian socialist C.L.R. At the end of the day, though, the artists can create such a vision – a James, a member of the Johnson- protest music that Weaver and her Forest tendency within the United 13 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST States Socialist Workers Party in the 1950s. - (See Review: Living For Change by Grace Lee Boggs in the 2007 Year-End Issue of TMS – Ed.) Weaver’s performance at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor last August started with a DJ spinning records and a few intrepid souls breaking in front of the stage. After a while, the scheduled performers started taking to the stage in sets. The first to perform was Tree City, a local, Ann Arbor- based hip-hop ensemble known for its politically charged rhymes. Consisting of M.I.C., G.P., Verseatyle, RealEyez, and DJ Cataclysmic, Tree City put on a performance pulsating with energy which showed a tight-knit coordination and understanding between its members, each seamlessly stage presence and startles with raw the many abandoned factories, taking up the beat where one of the energy and passion and a rapid-fire buildings and spaces, and putting others had left off. One of the songs delivery. She is authenticity incarnate them to other uses -- shifting their that particularly got the crowd -- you can sense that she puts all her shapes -- creating alternative exercised was a song with the refrain, being into her performance when she structures of power which can, in "Fuck the police!" I believe that this raps. She and Finale rapped her time, challenge existing power version of the song was the one famous song, "Sledgehammer!" Until structures. (There’s a really great created by the late rapper, Detroit recently, Invincible had a day job as a docu-music-video online, made by native J. Dilla -- an iconic figure in carpenter's apprentice, and so the some talented Detroit artists for the world of Detroit's legendary hip "sledgehammer" in the song may have Invincible and Finale’s track hop underground. more than allegorical meaning, in "Locusts" on the album Shapeshifters. Speaking of "legendary", addition to being a quintessential The video, showing the Michigan Majestik Legend performed a set, and symbol of protest. In fact, at least one Welfare Rights Organization he kept firing up people in the crowd critic, whom I later found online, (MWRO) housing takeovers, and with exhortations to keep going in interpreted the sledgehammer as "a Detroit youth talking about their whatever struggles they were engaged central metaphor" in Invincible's visions for their city and what they in. He mentioned how Detroit hip corpus, reading it as "both a symbol plan to do with the empty structures hop, and hip hop originating of the displacement of the urban and lots, is really inspiring. throughout Michigan, has started population and employment for the Researching Weaver’s music to take the world by storm. urban poor, and a means of active online, I found that a blogger Majestik Legend performed a resistance". (forlackofbetterwords.wordpress.com) moving piece with the refrain, "I Invincible also performed "Keep has remarked about the video, Need You," – and in his commentary, Goin'" and "Shapeshifters" from her "These are all good ideas that transformed the apparently egoistical, newly released album. Like the word promote a sense of community and possessive-sounding nature of the "sledgehammer", this word, healing for people in a city that has phrase into a statement of all people "shapeshifter" similarly lends itself to been pushed to the brink of implosion needing each other, from which his multiple interpretations. If a by capitalism. The docu-music-video rendering of the song, became a revolution ever happens in the USA, it is an inspiring piece; the track offers socialist anthem of universal is likely that its seed will be in places good analysis and promotes a spirit solidarity and interdependence. like Detroit. As Invincible herself has of struggle and resistance, and the Invincible and Finale then stated elsewhere, places like Detroit visuals are really powerful. But how came on stage. Invincible wore a dark are already places where people are do we translate these ideas into hoodie and a combat cap, stylistically building alternative institutions on action that will bring us closer to representative of her combative their own outside of existing power systemic change? What further music. Invincible has an incredible structures -- taking over, for example, organizing strategies are being 14 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST presented to transform the city on presented here, and like I said, the I found this to be a very more than just a neighborhood level youth talking about their plans for perceptive question, and the answer, (or on the neighborhood level; who taking over empty lots and spaces is my friends, is, as we all know, is organizing the markets and who is really fantastic. But what’s the socialism. The task of artists, being outreached to? Who is using strategy to get the building into the however, is not so much to provide the peace zone? What strategies are youth’s hands? And how does that fit answers but to lead us to ask the right being used to mediate conflict? What into a bigger strategy of taking questions. And I think my example are the solutions coming out of these control of the city at large so that shows that Weaver/Invincible is sessions to solve the problems that people who are taking over empty doing precisely that! She, and other people bring there, that are houses (like with the MWRO) are not socialist-minded Detroit underground alternative to violence?) I really jive eventually forced out by the rappers, are moving the struggle with the ideas that are being city/police?" forward in their music. ■

Stonewall Rebellion There are 1,100 federal and state was, and is, about a community that Continued from page 11 rights that are guaranteed only to repudiated the very idea that being "legally married" couples in America GLBTQ made you anything less than the closets on onto American in 2009. Among these are rights to human. On this 40th anniversary of streets. Using this date as the government and veteran’s pensions, the Stonewall Rebellion, remember judicial rights, and the right to be that. flashpoint, cities across America considered one’s next-of-kin in an and around the world continue to emergency. Hate crimes against celebrate the last week of June as GLBTQ individuals are up 6% from Pride Weekend, a weekend where we 2008 already, with only half of the remember the Rebellion, organize to year behind us. Americans serving in continue the fight for queer liberation, the military are denied these 1,100 and celebrate our culture, community, rights, and must remain silent for fear families and history. of being harmed and discharged under Stonewall never meant fundraising the repressive "Don’t Ask, Don’t at black-tie galas. It never meant Tell" doctrine. Everyday GLBTQ focusing on marriage as the sole Americans are attacked, harassed, and agenda. It always meant, it still forced to live in fear, but Americans means, freedom and pride. The fight are not the only ones. for marriage is just one piece of a In Brazil, a GLBTQ person is worldwide fight about killed every two days. In Iraq, rights. In American states GLBTQ homosexuality is still legally people can still be fired, evicted, punishable by death. Stonewall was Remember Stonewall. ■ violated, attacked, and murdered for about refusing to submit to fear, being anything except a heterosexual. tyranny, and violence. Stonewall

15 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST voters who cast write-in votes for the SPMI 2008 Election Results ticket for purposes of filing additional continued from page 9 complaints and potential legal action. write-in candidates that they sent to If you cast a write-in vote for the SP all Michigan counties and precincts. presidential ticket in Michigan this Moreover, the instructions they sent year and believe your vote went to all such precincts stated that write- un-tallied, we would appreciate any in votes containing a name not on information on where you voted and their list are invalid and must be how you cast your write-in vote, disregarded rather than tallied. through an email to Consequently, while the vast majority [email protected]. 2008 Socialist Party presidential of write-in votes cast for the ticket ticket: Brian Moore (right) and Although SPMI included both presidential candidate Stewart Alexander (left). members, following this election, are Moore and VP candidate Alexander, both optimistic about a continuing as the SPMI had encouraged after weeks after the election. Such pattern of electoral progress, and having confirmed the certification of officials, who have quite explicitly outraged by the disenfranchisement of both candidates as a ticket, evidence expressed their contempt for the state many of our voters in the presidential suggests that nearly all votes that law allowing for write-in candidacies, race, our most central consideration in included VP candidate Alexander even went so far this year as to send evaluating the success of our electoral were assumed to be invalid under the instructions to all precinct workers campaigns each election year is not faulty instructions election inspectors that, if any voters request to see the how many votes we obtain, but how received from the Michigan Bureau of list of write-in candidates, which each many people we were able to reach Elections. precinct is required to posses, they are with our political message, educate The widespread disenfranchisement to refuse to allow the voter to view about socialism, or rouse toward ______resulting from state and county the list or even to disclose its greater systemic contemplation of election officials' disregard for state contents. Consequently, Michigan events and conditions around us and law in providing such tallies was only voters' only source of information on the need for working people to fight compounded by the same Bureau of the ticket's Michigan write-in back and organize for revolutionary Elections officials having refused, qualification was the SP or SPMI change. Through our participation in without any statutory basis, to include directly. the 2008 elections, we're therefore any mention of certified presidential The SPMI is continuing to most gratified to have had our most write-in candidates on the state collect information on the far-reaching points of success in that general candidate listing or anywhere disenfranchisement of Michigan foremost aim of our electoral else accessible to the public until campaigns. ■ Socialist Party of Michigan Condemns Corporate Parties' Stratified Assault on State Budget

he Socialist Party of Michigan without regard for the degree of social expresses its strongest devastation underlying or imposed by Tcondemnation of the $304 their actions. million cuts to the state budget Under the state Democratic imposed through an executive order Party-initiated cuts, the Department of by Democratic Governor Granholm, Human Services will be slashed by and immediately passed by the State over $92 million, including cuts of House and Senate Appropriations nearly $12 million dollars from Committees on Thursday May 7th. In welfare programs and nearly $40 a period of depression-level million from childcare services. unemployment figures, rampant Despite massive layoffs presently school closures, and financial resulting in another 1,500 Michigan fund, with a resulting loss of 36.8 starvation of critically essential state becoming uninsured every week, the million federal matching dollars to and municipal services, state budget of the Michigan Department of follow. With school districts around lawmakers from both corporate Community Health will be cut by the state already facing the inability parties have once again acted to over $53 million, including cuts of tomaintain minimally essential balance the budget on the backs of $16 million from the state Medicaid operations, education and school aid Michigan's working class and poor 16 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST funding will be cut by nearly $7.5 overseeing the various state profits can our state's budget ever million. government programs established to truly become balanced. ■ Within two days following the dole out multi-million dollar budget order, the Michigan corporate welfare grants to Department of Natural Resources corporations that conduct some Congratulations to the announced the impending closure of portion of their operations in twelve state campgrounds as a result Michigan. Describing itself as, "a of a nearly half-million dollar loss to corporation, not a bureaucracy… its operations, alongside a cut of over matching up resources and services $5 million to the Department of with the needs of our business Environmental Quality. Michigan's customers," the MEDC is run by an strapped municipalities will be hard Executive Committee chaired by pressed to fill the gaps for any such Rock Enterprises CEO Matthew losses. While already confronting Cullen and composed of a gang of widespread economic emergencies of corporate executives with full their own, Granholm's order will deal authority to distribute state tax dollars Detroit Socialist Party local city budgets a second blow with $40 among the state's corporate elite. on its recent million in cuts to local shared The Socialist Party of re-organization! revenues. Michigan seeks to provide a genuine With "law and order" an even working people's alternative to the higher priority for the ruling elite in relentless betrayals and ever more the present economic climate, the intolerable assaults from the twin state corporate media has corporate parties. The SPMI Platform Keep overwhelmingly centered the focus of outlines an extensive program its coverage of the Governor's order providing a path and vision for a truly Socialists on the inclusion of cuts to the State democratic workers' state government on the Department of Police. None of such run by and for the state's majority, press stories, however, have rather than its richest one-percent. apparently found it worthy to mention Along the way of this path, the Ballot! that the comparatively minuscule cut Socialist Party of Michigan calls for of $9 million to State Police an immediate end to all forms of Department constitutes only two corporate welfare, a steeply graduated percent of its bloated $566 million state income and estate tax, the Make a Contribution to budget. The order's $10 million cut to abolition of regressive sales, sin and the Socialist Party of the Department of Corrections is property taxes, and a 100% capital Michigan! similarly trifling when compared to flight tax on corporations that attempt the $2 billion (one fifth of the total to cut labor costs by leaving the state. To contribute by mail, simply budget!) the state spends on Furthermore, we call for full mail a check or money order Corrections at present. Careful to employment, a $15/hr minimum wage avoid any perceptible reduction in (i.e., a minimum yearly salary of made out to “Socialist Party of funding for the state's prison- $31,200), free socialized health care Michigan” to: industrial complex, over 90% of the and lifelong education, a massive SPMI order's cut to the Corrections budget state public works program to re-build P.O. Box 844 will be made through employee our cities and communities, and full Marquette, MI 49855 "furlough days" to reduce the labor funding for state and municipal cost of the 1/3rd all state workers services to meet the needs of To contribute online by credit whom the Corrections Department Michigan workers and the state's employs. environment. card simply visit the SPMI Predictably, Granholm's Especially in light of the massive website at budget overhaul order also spares the and growing unemployment, the www.spmichigan.org and Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) from Socialist Party of Michigan calls for click the “donate” link in the facing even a $10 million reduction to the placement of all major left-hand column of the page. its budget. The MSF is the hat the corporations under democratic and state of Michigan wears for purposes collective ownership and workers' Thank you for your support! of legally financing the Michigan self-management. Only once we Economic Development Corporation eliminate the obsolete and (MEDC) – the primary body unaffordable cost of corporate private 17 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST "smuggled" into Iraq and killing Washington Post "thousands of Iraqis," without so continued from page 5 much as a bat of the eye. A vitally relevant response to such hypocritical Then, one might inquire about the lamenting would be to ask what one "foreign fighters" crossing the Syrian would call over 130,000 US troops border into Iraq — a claim to which and tens of thousands of privately the Washington Post dedicated contracted US mercenary troops? Are substantial space in its de facto they foreign? Were they "smuggled" government statement release. Even if into Iraq? taken to be true, the question of The Washington Post cited whether this claim is significant, is the US Treasury Department’s one that could be debated in academic assertion that al-Mazidih, (an alleged circles. No such ambiguity, "target" of the US raid) was a "key however, to the question of whether it facilitator of the transfer of money, has any bearing on the moral or legal weapons, and fighters into Iraq" by Syrian villagers mourn family status of the US military assault in implication, making him a legitimate members killed in the unprovoked Syria. Based on the established target for assassination. If that is to be U.S. helicopter raid last October. meaning of terrorism under US law the case, are Secretary of Defense (similar to that of most states and the Robert Gates, or even the cannot be considered foreign in a land UN) the US attack cannot be Democratic-led US senate, "key that belongs to America, a land that described as anything other than facilitators" of these crimes by has been subject to American terrorism, or perhaps even more carrying out extensive violence conquest. The "facilitators" of war egregiously, as aggression. against the Iraqi people? Are they money, weapons, and fighters from This brings us to yet another America are not subject to the same interesting ideological constraint then legitimate assassination standards either, for the same reasons present in the Washington Post's targets for Iraqis, Syrians, mentioned above. coverage. The Post’s report includes Pakistanis or Afghans? By entertaining these lengthy and continuous quotes from, Clearly, fighters are only assertions handed down by the lords terrorism experts, analysts, and senior "foreign" if they do not serve US of state power and propaganda, the officials proclaiming the horror of power. The assumption therefore Washington Post is, by "hundreds of foreign fighters" being teaches us that American soldiers presupposition, giving the discredited and utterly illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq, a stamp of legitimacy. This sort of ratification of illegal and immoral state terror and aggression is a serious barrier to peace. It reinforces deeply entrenched imperial beliefs and assumptions that guarantee the continued suffering of millions of victims of US crimes, not only in the Middle East, but worldwide. Speaking of the world, such "senior US officials," as dubbed by the Post, seem to have a peculiar conception of what is "global." Again, restated in the Washington Post unremarkably and without question, US officials pointed to the "global threat" in Syria's "backyard," (a reference to "foreign fighters" crossing Syrian/Iraqi border) as one of its justifications for the assault. Coincidentally, the leading global polls consistently show that a majority of the world sees American, not 18 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST Syrian, involvement in Iraq, as the [i] "U.S. Calls Raid a Warning to leading source of instability in the Syria" Scott Tyson, Ann and Ellen world. Even in Europe, the area of the Knickmeyer. Tuesday, October 28, world most sympathetic to the US, the 2008; Page A01 US was cited as the greatest threat to (www.washingtonpost.com/wp- VISIT US peace and stability.[v] To allow such dyn/content/article/2008/10/27/AR20 a blatantly misleading and false 08102700511.html) ONLINE... statement go unchallenged and [ii] Military sources include an unchecked is simply more evidence of unnamed "senior US official," US the Washington Post's role as a military analyst, Anthony Cordesman, platform for state propaganda the "Combating Terrorism Center" at glorifying and rationalizing US global West Point Military Academy, and domination through force and other unidentified "US officers" or violence. "officials." US terror, such as the recent [iii] The term "Ministry of Truth" is attack on Syria, is, regrettably, not an originally from George Orwell's novel unfamiliar scene, but more so, the on totalitarianism, 1984. In the novel, official US policy for decades. The "The Ministry of Truth" was a sector dismal and propagandistic coverage of the government in charge of and reporting of such events in spreading lies and propaganda to mainstream newspapers such as the glorify the state. Washington Post is also an old and [iv] The US Code consists of "laws powerful institution in American life. made by the United States Congress, Even by Washington’s grim which is legislation that passes both and Download standards, however, the casual the Senate and the House of extension of US terror and aggression Representatives." The entire US code all in the region to two additional can be accessed at: sovereign nations in less than a (www.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes) back Issues month, (Syria and Pakistan) signals, a [v] A 2007 survey conducted by new degree of bold, reckless, and Harris Research for the Financial of systematic disregard for global and Times showed that Europeans saw national conventions whether codified America as the greatest threat to The Michigan in US law, international law, global stability. (binding) UN resolutions, or human (www.corepolitics.com) The 2006 Socialist at: rights accords. The open declarations Pew Research Center Poll, which of US terrorism, as reported surveyed 15 different countries, respectably and unchallenged in showed that the presence of the US in mainstream publications, are telling as Iraq was understood to be the greatest to the boundless nature of the US danger to world peace. crusade for global domination and the (www.csmonitor.com) lengths to which media outlets will [vi] The quoted words are those of stretch themselves in order to conform military analyst, Anthony Cordesman, to the dictates of elite interest and as quoted in the Washington Post, state power. advocating state terror as a reasonable So long as the American mind way of "dealing" with nations not is held hostage by a system of thought subservient enough to the US. ■ control which adheres to the doctrine that textbook international terrorism is spmichigan.org "the only way [the US] can deal with" independent and sovereign nations, the power structure will continue to do as it pleases no matter how many people it slaughters along the way.[vi]

19 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST equivalent of what now accumulatively divide-and-conquer strategy. Through Joe The Plumber amounts to well over half the U.S. its post-bailout resurrection of red- continued from page 4 GDP from the public treasury, the baiting in regular media and political bailout shifted the substantive question discourse, however, the U.S. ruling While the extraordinary degree of of socializing the commanding heights establishment has this time designated demagoguery, distortion, and insularity of the economy to not only one of its very own functionaries to characterizing popular discourse and imperative, but one of common appropriate the "costumes and battle debate in the U.S. is often dismissively induction. slogans," of both the socialist threat, attributed only to the political As highlighted in the politically and those of the threat’s enemies, by backwardness of its population, such incendiary findings of an April 2009 means of inverting the political aspects of American political life most U.S. public opinion poll by Rasmussen signification of the bailout’s directly derive from the U.S. ruling Reports, "Only 53% of American extraordinarily obscene scale of public establishment’s longstanding adults [now] believe capitalism is robbery, within the realm of popular refinement of its commercial and better than socialism," with 20% of perception. Rather than merely institutional mechanisms of generating American adults now decisively directing the focus of their divide-and- public opinion. Having developed such holding that socialism is better and conquer strategies toward the political mechanisms far beyond the capabilities another 27% still undecided between left, the subordinate public of any other western capitalist republic capitalism and socialism. The poll mouthpieces of the U.S. ruling class confronted with the threat of similar further found that "adults under 30 are have subsequently striven to conditions during the preceding 20th essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer duplicitously portray themselves as the Century, the U.S. ruling class aims to capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% leading oppositional voices of the fully utilize such a unique weapon in are undecided." Such figures become people to the brazen robbery the class struggle toward its common even further striking when compared conducted by the very business class interest of systemic and status to findings of a poll taken the same they represent. By therefore conversely preservation, as much as its general month by the Pew Research Group that equating the very financial bailout interest in expansionary exploitation the percentage of American adults itself with socialism, in such feigned and imperialism. identifying as Democrats has dropped oppositional rhetoric, the U.S. Deepening crisis conditions six points since last December to a corporate media concertedly aimed to have thus far surely led the U.S. ruling mere 33%, while only 22% of divert the surge of post-bailout public class to begin anxiously and American adults now identify as outrage toward targeting the sole, and pervasively ‘conjuring up spirits’ of Republicans. Put in other words, not otherwise ever more apparent, solution tragically vanquished revolutions of only does the percentage of American to the crisis conditions that created it. the past. But the renewed and adults who now decisively favor a Following Republican immediate role of such re-conjured socialist transformation from presidential candidate John McCain’s spirits is to smokescreen the farcical capitalism stand neck and neck with harrowing dip in the polls, resulting efforts of the ruling elite to divert the the percentage of grown Americans from his Republican predecessor’s focus of increasingly implacable public who presently identify as Republicans, widely perceived association with the outrage from the genuine dynamics of but the percentage of Americans adults financial bailout and crisis, the present and historical political reality. now claiming no preference for politicians and pundits of the corporate Following a sustained period capitalism over socialism comes nearly establishment’s Republican wing of worsening economic forecasts after neck and neck with the percentage of began immediate efforts to further the burst of the housing bubble, the American adults who currently identify broaden the recent revival of red- transformation of the 'socialist threat’s' with either the Democratic or baiting discourse toward the campaign status, from historically settled defeat - Republican parties combined! of McCain’s Democratic opponent. to imminently perilous Trojan horse, No longer credibly able to Standing far to the right of developed only after the recent continue relying upon the mantra of even former Republican president meltdown of the capitalist financial socialism’s historically settled defeat, Richard Nixon, who proposed sector and resulting bail-out of Wall the major U.S. media and public establishing such measures as a Street. In having strikingly unveiled relations industries consequently universally guaranteed minimum the ultimate financial insolubility, returned nearly ubiquitously to the annual income, the alleged radicalism predatory orientation, and mendacious long retired practice of red-baiting as of Democratic presidential candidate free market mantra of modern the particular form of choice in which Barack Obama could not even be said capitalism’s underpinning economic to peddle its ever enduring to extend toward support for single- institutions, the financial meltdown led construction of red-herrings. Like the payer health care, much less support segments of even the business press to not-long forgotten anticommunist for anything even remotely begin questioning the long-term smear campaigns of the early Cold approaching socialism. Consequently, sustainability of the capitalist system. War era, the post-bailout subterfuge Republican efforts to portray such an In20 having consequently demanded the has been aimed toward pursuit of a The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST image centered almost entirely on policies upon which they once relied their incessant presentation of to maintain the long-term endurance fragmented references to Obama’s and stability of their sources of single utterance of the term, "spread exploitation, have ceased to remain the wealth around," in the impromptu tolerable to the extent that such response he had given to the, later intervening measures may impede persona-forming, question asked to their immediate needs for such him by Joe "the Plumber" exploitation's insatiably unbridled Wurzelbacher. expansion (see the SPMI statement on The emblematic significance the U.S. financial meltdown on p.7). of this particular line's selection for By equating the publicly reviled such demagogical manipulation is financial sector bailout with Obama’s only further apparent when examined alleged ambition to "spread the wealth in its rarely quoted full context. around," the U.S. corporate media bound thought even more effectively. Rather than expressing any Robin deliberately sought to take advantage In other words, if the press is indeed Hood-like character to his political of Americans' globally unparalleled adversarial and liberal and all these aspirations, the entirety of Obama's degree of historical ignorance and bad things, then how can I go beyond response to Wurzelbacher was residual Cold War indoctrination in it? They're already so extreme in their rhetorically oriented to addressing the order to wholly strip any scholastic opposition to power that to go beyond risks of economic instability on association with social class from it would be to take off from the present, and purportedly future, small their conceptual and historical planet…The media would then serve employers. In the very same final understandings of socialism. Through to say in effect: thus far and no sentence of Obama's response to the continuous reinforcement of such further." Wurzelbacher's question, from which a class-blind distortion of the term’s Just as the subservience to power his "spread the wealth" line was meaning, the ruling establishment of the U.S. corporate media is continuously spliced, Obama had effectively aimed to conceptually counterpoised by its alleged liberal actually stated, reduce socialism to any political bias, the equation of socialism with "My attitude is that if the system or occurrence in which the Obama’s vaguely presented, and economy’s good for folks from the income of one section of the corporate right-of--center campaign bottom up, it’s gonna be good for population is coercively appropriated program, aimed to render any everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing by another (i.e. to inversely equate it genuinely socialist, or even business, you’re gonna be better off if with very foundation of capitalism substantively progressive, political you’ve got a whole bunch of and all preceding forms of class challenge as otherworldly and easily customers who can afford to hire you, society!). The question of which class contained within the contrived debates and right now everybody’s so pinched such antagonistic sections of the of the two capitalist parties. that business is bad for everybody and population belong to, or how they While respectively diverging in I think when you spread the wealth came into possession of such their appeals to capitalism’s economic around, it’s good for everybody." allegedly dispossessed income, is stability, and its mythologized ethos, In contrast to Nixon's famous thereby rendered entirely irrelevant. both the previously quoted actual 1971 turning-point declaration that, The sequential transference in response given by Obama to "we are all Keynesians now," Obama's focal point of the newly resurrected Wurzelbacher’s question, and the merely descriptive reaffirmation of wave of anti-socialist rhetoric, from McCain campaign’s subsequent such basic Keynesian precepts, the financial sector bail-out, to the creation of Wurzelbacher’s "Joe the formerly at the foundation of U.S. alleged political goals of the Plumber" personage, were principally macroeconomic policy since the New Democratic candidate, allowed for directed at the very same sections of Deal, had become transformatively further diversion of rising socialist the U.S. population – those who, designated as being equivalent to the sentiment, resulting from the financial materially or aspiringly, identify most very socialist convictions that the crisis, through the entrapment and with American capitalism’s preeminent placatory and regulatory false-dichotomization of the growing increasingly dwindling middle class of functions of Keynesian theory and 'socialist challenge' within general small business owners and the self- policies were developed to prevent. public perception. As Chomsky has employed. With the exception of corporate elsewhere noted, Having begun with an observation capitalists’ sustained support for "if the system functions well, it ought of history’s farcical repetitions, perpetual market intervention in the to have a liberal bias, or at least Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire form of state-subsidization, within the appear to. Because if it appears to examined this particular form of that presently declining stage of have a liberal bias, that will serve to tendency when written over a century capitalism, the very macroeconomic and a half prior. Within the 21 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST concluding passage of the essay, Marx help of hired fascist demagogues, working class whose observes, "As the executive authority incites the despairing petty bourgeoisie narrow focus on which has made itself independent, against the worker. The bourgeois [i.e. progressing to the Bonaparte feels it to be his task to capitalist] regime can be preserved ranks of petty safeguard ‘bourgeois [i.e. capitalist] only by such murderous means as capitalists entirely order.’ But the strength of this these. For how long? Until it is displaces their bourgeois order lies in the middle overthrown by proletarian [i.e. recognition of their class. He poses, therefore, as the workers’] revolution." own class interests as representative of the middle class and members of the issues decrees in this sense. Joe the Plumber may not have working majority. Nevertheless, he is somebody solely displayed a brown-shirt or Strongly overlapping with this because he has broken the power of assembled a goon-squad to break- demographic were those most likely to up labor organizing, but the iconic that middle class, and keeps on role of a proto-fascist was the be witnessed cheering such perpetually breaking it daily. He poses, therefore, essence of his manufactured shouted phrases as, "terrorist," "kill as the opponent of the political and personage. him," and even "lynch him," following literary power of the middle class. But references to Obama at McCain/Palin by protecting its material power he In so far as preemptively rallies and subsequently those of the revives its political power. Thus the employed propaganda has remained directly corporate-financed “tea party cause must be kept alive, but the effect, successful in diverting the mass public movement” that has since emerged in where it manifests itself, must be done outrage resulting from the bailout and the present post-election period. Such away with. But this cannot happen financial crisis, from reaching its true correlating racist undertones to Joe the without small confusions of cause and political conclusions, the U.S. ruling Plumber’s appeal have not been effect, since in their interaction both elite has still yet to allow fascism to amorphous. While the more placatory lose their distinguishing marks. New overtake the pretenses of political wing of the U.S. ruling establishment decrees obliterate the border line. democracy as a final means to maintain has sought to exploit the turning-point Bonaparte knows how to pose at the its rule. But just as the growth of appeal of the first non-white president’s same time as the representative of the precursory mechanisms for martial law election as a means of co-optationally peasants and of the people in general, represent the increasing development of averting the radicalization of rising as a man who wants to make the lower a latent fascistic apparatus progressive sentiment, the more overtly classes happy within the framework of institutionally; the mass-generated suppressive wing has already bourgeois society." rhetoric that emerged during the post- demonstrated its aim of contrastingly Over eight decades after Marx meltdown, final months of the framing such a development to stir wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire, Leon preceding election, represent the reactionary indignation among whites Trotsky observed how this same orchestrated development of the who perceive the concurrent decline of recurring tendency, amidst periods of precursory discursive themes for such the middle class as a threat to their capitalist crisis, ultimately finds its an apparatus within the U.S. social and racial entitlement. Even prior to the culmination in the outbreak of fascism. political climate. election, one could hardly presume it a In his 1934 pamphlet “Whither Joe the Plumber may not have coincidence that each of the four France?” (later excerpted into his displayed a brown-shirt or assembled a individuals proclaiming the words "I 1944 compilation of writings on the goon-squad to break-up labor am Joe," in the McCain/Palin television subject in Fascism: What it is and How organizing, but the iconic role of a ad following Joe the Plumber’s debut, to Fight It), Trotsky observes that, proto-fascist was the essence of his were white men standing in front of "The fascists find their human manufactured personage. As the widely their places of business. material mainly in the petty proclaimed spokesperson for middle Rather predictably, the hallmark bourgeoisie [i.e. middle class]. The class embitterment, Wurzelbacher principle with which the McCain latter has been entirely ruined by big wasn’t the least bit reticent to begin campaign ultimately framed Joe the capital. There is no way out for it in the speaking at anti-labor rallies against the Plumber, and by virtue his own present social order, but it knows of no Employee Free Choice Act, or to select campaign, to embody, was that of the other. Its dissatisfaction, indignation, the term "socialist" as his epithet of "American dream," which and despair are diverted by the fascists choice. Moreover, as a low-income Wurzelbacher had initially accused away from big capital and against the worker purportedly aspiring to become Obama of "killing" during their brief workers. It may be said that fascism is a relatively opulent small-business campaign-stop exchange that the act of placing the petty bourgeoisie owner, Wurzelbacher’s character was subsequently led to the launching of his at the disposal of its most bitter able to speak not only for the “Joe the Plumber” personage. enemies. In this way, big capital ruins increasingly insecure position of the As a deeply racialized, and the middle classes and then, with the existing middle class, but the most specifically middle class-oriented politically backward sections of the 22 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST ideal, the 'American dream’s' new wave of mantras on the ‘American realization, the more crucial becomes longstanding, and appellatively dream’ will undoubtedly be selected as the task of U.S. working people to inherent, association with the national that period’s official political slogans. replace the vertically atomized focus quintessence of the United States, As the U.S. middle class the American dream inherently inevitably______invokes jingoism as a third continues to inevitably further beckons, with the horizontally component______of the term’s fundamental diminish amidst the suffocating decline collective focus constituting the only signification.______In doing so, it provides of advanced capitalism, the 'American truly viable means for our shared and for the addition of uniquely American dream’s' thematic attributions have sustainable social advancement. As pretexts for mobilizing middle class begun to increasingly turn from the Eugene V. Debs so aptly expressed trepidation in the cloak of the flag. If justificatory creed of class mobility to nearly a century ago, "I would be the ever the United States ultimately the fierce defense of hierarchical class ashamed to admit that I had risen from succumbs to fascist political rule, from divisions. As rhetorical appeals to the the ranks. When I rise, it will be the______dereliction of its working class at American dream proportionately grow with the ranks."■ the acme of the U.S. class struggle, a with its declining degree of material Socialist Party Condemns Post-Election Racist Attacks Adopted by the Socialist profitability of corporations at the other. Party USA National Action expense of working-class America. The socialist Committee People can expect little in the way of left has fundamental change in healthcare, learned the he Socialist Party USA militarism or wealth redistribution. hard lessons condemns the racially Winning these much needed changes of the 20th motivated attacks which have will be the duty of broad social century and T movements. will oppose followed the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Poor and working class whites any racist People of color have been targeted will therefore be challenged not to fall attacks be throughout the country by small back into patterns of racial animus they cultural or physical. A cultural groups of racist whites. Acts have which debilitated the labor movement approach which features exchange and ranged from a cross burning, simulated throughout the 20th century. As engagement, instead of just tolerance, lynchings and even violent attacks in scholar W.E.B DuBois noted, white offers the brightest possibilities for some instances. Mainstream news workers have often proved willing to unity among all working people. sources report that hundreds of forgo the struggle for material gains in Public campaigns and policy proposals incidents have occurred. favor of receiving the psychological to dismantle the prison industrial The election of Barack Obama wages of whiteness. complex, address issues of was undoubtedly an important As the US heads toward a major environmental racism and to challenge historical event. Millions of economic recession, a racist discourse racial patterns of employment could Americans rejected the race and red which targets people of color and demonstrate the effectiveness of anti- baiting tactics of the McCain-Palin immigrants is sure to emerge among a racist class politics. campaign and cast their vote without section of whites. Elite politicians will We recognize that every human regard to race-status. The election seek to mobilize these sentiments as a being regardless of their country of therefore drew from the long-term means to push forward a right-wing origin or skin pigmentation needs progressive cultural impact of the civil political agenda. However, class unity healthcare, a clean environment and a rights movement. Viewed entirely can be built through a critical peaceful life. Socialists remain from this perspective, the election of recognition of the role of racism inside committed to challenging the fear, Obama represents a potentially of capitalist society. Speaking out racism and oppression that typify progressive moment in American race forcefully against racism and building capitalist society by building relations. democratic multi-racial coalitions will movements which demonstrate that Sadly, the Obama presidency greatly assist in the construction of the solidarity, equality and compassion will offer little of the "change" and mass social movements needed to offer brighter possibilities for "hope" it promised throughout the move beyond the meager reforms humanity. Thus, the Socialist Party campaign. Early indications are that offered by the Obama regime. White USA says no to racist attacks! No to his administration will be directed by a supremacy is a primary enemy of white supremacy! And, yes to free-market capitalist agenda and his working class solidarity. The recent working class solidarity in the service policies will seek to enhance the racist attacks are purposeful attempts of human liberation! ■ to divide working people against each 23 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST Proletarian Poetry Bitch I AM LIKE THE MOUNTAIN

By NICOL PARTIDA By NICOL PARTIDA Editor, The Michigan Socialist Editor, The Michigan Socialist I AM LIKE THE MOUNTAIN It comes with the force of SOY COMO LA MONTAÑA A slap shades of BROWNS and pinks The shut her up and put her to bed matizes de cafés y rosas Or seasoned and roughed by the wind The simple mouthing of the word sazonado por el viento borrascoso y escopleado por una tormenta B-I-T-C-H smoother yet edgy That coats our skin with contempt suave pero duro And slowly over centuries seeps into our with the wisdom of thousands of years, decades, and centuries blood con la sabiduría de miles de años, décados, siglos Proving toxic quietly yet firmly watching the world Just like silencing laws that create my body – our tranquilamente pero firmemente observando el mundo bodies – as property SOY COMO LA MONTAÑA That standing is a crime, working a shame I AM LIKE THE MOUNTAIN CONOZCO CADA CUENTO ENTRE ESTAS GENERACIONES DE TIERRA That women’s worth I KNOW EACH STORY WITHIN THE GENERATIONS OF SEDIMENT Is not worth at all NUESTRA HISTORIA NUNCA PODRÁ SER BORRADA But enveloped in the reconstruction of capitalist SOBREVIVE EN MI VOZ Y MIS CUENTOS beauty OUR HISTORY NEVER ERASED, KEPT ALIVE BY MY TONGUE Models kept hunger like poor children, poor women Women’s worth GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY, they said Drowned in self slashed skin, the bleeding YOU WETBACK SPIC GREASER LAZY CHOLA POTSMOKING DISWASHING ILLEGAL ALIEN wounds seeming numbing, forgiving GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY, they said But our bodies dried of blood and voice in the desert’s loneliness Yet what this WHITE COLONIZING ENGLISH ONLY THERE IS NO SEXISM NOR RACISM The sun the only witness to the horrors HOMOPHOBIC U.S. CITIZEN did not know This is carried in the quick judgments of was that She was asking for it It- death, rape, that my bumpy spine is the brown and pink mountains of El Paso that have a burnt fiery image of hunger, poverty, hate, starvation, no rights, and thunderbird –a thunderbird that sacrifices innocence for the revenge of colonization hatred of ourselves that the wrinkles and smoothness of skin is la tierra that floods what you call the "southwest" It begins with the simple name calling of

Bitch that the scars on my body is the bleeding scar in MEXICO what you call the border Whore Slut that the strands of my hair are the mud cracks in the beautiful golden dark brown desert where natures That once were names of beautiful loving survives – my eyes are the turquoise stones in the desert – my mouth the cool caves of Carlsbad goddesses GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY, they said "I slapped him like a woman" as I stood on the very land that has witnessed over 500 years of colonization – 250 of them U.S. invasion as I stood on the sandy dirt reflecting the various colors of my hermanas and brothers shades of pinks, golds, browns, blacks, and burnt reds as I stood on the land my ancestors died on enslaved to the spanish the land that cradles my bisabuelas body sacrificed to U.S. invasion, genocide, and land stealing the land that warms mi ama’s plump small body as she gets off the greyhound to visit us the land that mi mami couldn’t recognize was once her own, the land that stared back at her in a harsh unknown language where white faces constantly deported her my blood has known this land, the breezes, the vibrant sun, the snakes, scorpions, the colors, the smells – the secrets longer than you’ve learned to hate me- longer than the 500 years of slaughter, erasure, rape, colonization and invasion by your blood- this is land is mi alma, mi aliento, mi vida –

24 The MICHIGAN SOCIALIST